


The apartment of a stranger and me

by creative_smtimes



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cute, F/F, Roommates, they are roommates but they have never met
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:41:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21595522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creative_smtimes/pseuds/creative_smtimes
Summary: She and I have been sharing a flat for years now, but we have never met. She leaves for two months in the morning and I come back in the evening, two months later, we switch again. This has worked well for a long time, but soon it will change.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	The apartment of a stranger and me

**Author's Note:**

> I found this story I started writing years ago. After you read it, please tell me in the comments if I should keep writing or not.

It smells like it always does. Soap, washing powder, a tiny bit of beer and that special kind of smell which I can’t assign to anything. For me, this smell is her. That, the hats on the wall to my right and the scratches on the doorframes. Every time I come home, there is a new one of both the hats and the scratches, the smell stays the same.

I am exhausted so I place my suitcases and backpack on the floor of the corridor. A big sigh leaves my mouth as I sink into the doorframe leading to the kitchen. My eyes wandered over the wall she puts up her hats on, trying to locate the new one. The black top head in the middle was the first. I think back to a few years ago when there was just a big white wall with a black top hat opposite to a big white wall with a wine-red coloured western hat from my first trip to the US.

After gathering enough power to pull myself up at the door frame, I notice the new scratch. It looks like someone carried the kitchen table out and bumped it against the frame. I trail back to where I dropped my bags to get my newest hat out of the backpack. I choose a free hook in the bottom left corner of the wall to place the green hunter's hat with the feather on it. Smiling at my addition surrounded by all the memories of the older hats, I turn around again to find the newest one of Nova’s.

It has been hard to keep track after some time since there are so many things to remember about each adventure I went on that I often forget about things at home. I find the new hat relatively quickly anyway. It is a little blue one with a black bow around it in the top left corner of her wall. I got a similar one from Portugal two years earlier.

Sometimes I wonder if she ever wears them. I don't. Well, sometimes I wear one of hers when I feel lonely. Then, I put the top hat on and crawl up on the sofa to watch Netflix. It might sound weird but it makes me feel like I am not as alone as I really am.

As I stare at her hat collection I remember that I haven’t read her letter yet. At every “change”, as we simply called it, we leave a note in the kitchen for the other to read when she comes home. It has been the only verbal interaction between us since the e-mails eight years ago in which we arranged everything about the flat and our travels.

I was 19 back then and had just finished school three months prior. After spending those months mostly in bed, attempting to get back the sleep I had lost in my twelve years at school, I decided it was time to do something. I had always wanted to travel but also have a place to call home. I had considered driving around in a transformed bus like those things you see on YouTube, but it soon occurred to me that that concept would tie me to one continent and getting my “home” to other continents or even to islands would cost me all of my nerves. While complaining about the problem I had to an internet friend from Norway, I found out about an acquaintance of this internet friend that had been struggling with the same idea. So, our shared friend gave us each other’s email addresses and the adventure of sharing a flat with a stranger began.

There is a folded white piece of paper on the kitchen table as always when I come back. I quickly unfold it to see just a few swiftly written sentences in the familiar rushed handwriting. I read it out loud, imitating how I think her voice would sound if it was her saying it.

_ Hey stranger, _

_ Nice hat you got us there this time, I like the colour, hope you like mine too (it's the blue one top left, in case you didn't find it). _

_ I’m going to South Africa this time so maybe I'll bring a sunhat? We’ll see. _

_ Don't burn the house down _

_ -N _

It makes me smile. She always writes that last sentence and every time I picture her smiling in the same ridiculous way when she writes it as I do when I read it.

I decide to unpack my suitcases but before I can even leave the kitchen the doorbell rings. It makes me smile again because that ding dong is the sound of home. With only the taste and feeling of home left to be tasted and felt I open the door. The sight of the person standing there smiling at me immediately has me think that I won’t have to wait for the taste of home for much longer.

“I heard your door earlier and since it’s changing day I thought you might be hungry from the trip so I made a little more lasagna,” Ira, the about 80-year-old widower who lives in the flat across the hall, smiles. He is the perfect grandpa with his storytelling-voice and nice smile.

“Thank you so much, I am starving,” I laugh while hugging the tiny man hello.

“You’re welcome,” his face shines from the bright smile he gives me, “Do you want to come over or should I bring you a plate?”

“I think I could use some human interaction,” I grab my keys and close the door behind me. “I had one of those snorers next to me on the plane”, I continue to make conversation.

“Sounds awful.”

We enter Ira’s flat which is built as an exact mirror to Nova’s and mine. This one smells like old people and lasagna. Instead of with hats, the walls were filled with pictures of the big family of Ira Elmer. He has told me many stories about his children, grandchildren and the one great-grandchild that came about two years ago. He is very proud of every single one of them. Still, it doesn’t happen often that one of them comes to visit. “Sometimes you and Nova are better grandkids than them and you aren’t even mine,” he says whenever he finishes a story about one of them while pointing at the faces in the photos.

The lasagna tastes as wonderful as always and we eat while talking about my trip to Australia and what his family has been up to while I was gone.

“I’m full,” I sigh, leaning into the back of the chair, rubbing my stomach.

“Me too,” a belch leaves the old man’s mouth, “Pardon!”

I laugh at his attempt to sound French but opening my mouth so widely only makes me yawn. As if it is a choreography we get up at the same time, me to put the plates into the dishwasher, he to put the casserole into the sink. We do it whenever I come back and he probably does the same with Nova. Sometimes I find it weird how he knows my roommate as well as he knows me but I have never met her. Could she even be called a “roommate”?

Ira tells me to go to bed as I yawn for the third time. I say goodbye and obey his order.


End file.
